How Base10 uses Notion to power investment decisions that make a difference
Base10 Partners does venture capital a little differently — through their Advancement Initiative fund, Base10 invests in top technology companies to help them diversify their cap table and use venture to move money to minority-serving and minority-owned institutions. The team uses Notion to collaborate, share knowledge, and make investment decisions quickly.
Insights from
Luci Fonseca
Principal
1
Managing the investment decision-making process to drive returns and impact
Base10’s weekly investment meetings start with a master Notion template — where investors track, collaborate, and decide in which companies to invest. The template collects a set of standardized information for each meeting, ensuring all prospects are evaluated on appropriate criteria.
This fuels high-quality investment decision-making by removing friction and providing necessary information in a digestible format for all investors ahead of their discussions. But the template isn’t static. It can be updated whenever there’s a new learning so the entire team takes it forward.
A templated weekly tracker allows Base10’s investors to keep up with priorities from week to week, moving at a pace that keeps them on course while keeping cycle time short.
2
Getting the word out, no web dev needed
To fully realize its mission, Base10 needs to be a force of change. Part of that is partnering with technology companies and mission-aligned actors to generate financial aid and scholarships for HBCU students through the Advancement Initiative. But another part is educating key groups and prospective partners on important topics related to their mission and helping portfolio companies continue to deepen their impact post-investment.
“Ultimately, our goal is to use the wealth-generating power of venture and technology to move capital and distribute wealth," says Luci.
So Base10 uses public Notion pages to publish recommendations to companies and partners, as well as outline Base10’s offerings to groups that choose to partner with the Advancement Initiative. They use templates to quickly create these public Notion pages and reach audiences as soon as important issues emerge — all without needing an engineer to update their website.
Notion templates make it easy to build documents that are polished, up-to-date, and easily shared with stakeholders.
Being able to quickly create docs has streamlined our ability to share information — and it takes a fraction of the time it would to create a web page in another tool.
Luci Fonseca
Principal
Principal
3
Following through on team to-do’s by keeping them top of mind
On an individual level, Base10’s investors need to stay on track in an atmosphere that moves at a breakneck pace. Rather than letting one ongoing to-do list spiral, some investors create a new templated list each week, which they pin to the Favorites section of their sidebar, so it’s always top of mind — helping them stay organized.
These to-do lists are often organized hierarchically, where tasks are filed under their overarching goals. This way, each task aligns to something bigger. At the end of the week, investors can clone their to-do lists and archive the current week to start fresh on Monday.
Staying on top of daily and weekly tasks is easy with a templated to-do list, which investors can pin to Favorites each week, then archive.
I run my investor life in Notion. My to-do list is customized to fit all parts of my day-to-day, from portfolio support to fundraising
Luci Fonseca
Principal
Principal
4
Launch trackers standardize funding and announcing investments
Funding a startup is a process with many moving tasks, people, and timelines, often culminating in an external announcement. To pull off a launch on time, it all has to come together seamlessly.
To standardize this process and ensure nothing is missed when a new funding round is launched, Base10 uses a Notion template to build each launch tracker. The tracker allows Base10’s team to track owners, tasks required, and any reference documents that are needed.
Launch templates give Base10’s investors the ability to create a framework they’ve seen succeed, and take that into future launches. Whether it’s assigning owners or creating a timeline, investors know this playbook has all the right parts — they just need to fill it out to meet their needs.
Standardizing the launch process with a templated checklist not only makes each launch easier to manage; it also gives each company Base10 funds a consistent, positive experience.
